Black Diamond Features & Highlights

Overview

Guide

Video

Women's Outerwear

When Black Diamond set out to create a new apparel line, only the best would do. That’s why its women’s line incorporates materials from category leaders like GORE-TEX®, Polartec®, PrimaLoft®,Pertex®, and Schoeller Textil®. Combine these ingredients with Black Diamond’s understanding of the needs of mountain athletes and its aggressive pursuit of perfection, and the end result is top-of-the-line apparel for skiing, climbing, mountaineering, or any other high alpine pursuit.

Black Diamond’s lightweight, mid-fat Convert Ski was already a crowd favorite and an award-winner—this year, Black Diamond has stepped it up with the new Carbon Convert Ski. Nearly a pound lighter, it’s designed to fly up the skintrack and to crush the descent.

As with all its other products, Black Diamond designed its fleece clothing with the specific needs of backcountry skiers and climbers in mind. Top-quality Polartec fleece and features that enable the tops and bottoms to layer easily under shells ensure that you’re warm, dry, and mobile.

Video

Quadrant Boot

The Quadrant AT boot has been collecting accolades for years, thanks to its stunning combination of super-lightweight, touring-focused design and stiff, responsive freeride performance. But Black Diamond is not one to rest on its laurels—the 2014 version has been redesigned and improved. The four-buckle shell with a rockered rubber sole and tech fittings is essentially the same, but the liner has been reworked to include a metalized Strobel base, articulated flex zones and taped seams for all-day cold-weather touring comfort.

Guide

Women's Outerwear

When Black Diamond set out to create a new apparel line, only the best would do. That’s why its women’s line incorporates materials from category leaders like GORE-TEX®, Polartec®, PrimaLoft®,Pertex®, and Schoeller Textil®. Combine these ingredients with Black Diamond’s understanding of the needs of mountain athletes and its aggressive pursuit of perfection, and the end result is top-of-the-line apparel for skiing, climbing, mountaineering, or any other high alpine pursuit.

Quadrant Boot

The Quadrant AT boot has been collecting accolades for years, thanks to its stunning combination of super-lightweight, touring-focused design and stiff, responsive freeride performance. But Black Diamond is not one to rest on its laurels—the 2014 version has been redesigned and improved. The four-buckle shell with a rockered rubber sole and tech fittings is essentially the same, but the liner has been reworked to include a metalized Strobel base, articulated flex zones and taped seams for all-day cold-weather touring comfort.

Carbon Convert Ski

Black Diamond’s lightweight, mid-fat Convert Ski was already a crowd favorite and an award-winner—this year, Black Diamond has stepped it up with the new Carbon Convert Ski. Nearly a pound lighter, it’s designed to fly up the skintrack and to crush the descent.

Fleece

As with all its other products, Black Diamond designed its fleece clothing with the specific needs of backcountry skiers and climbers in mind. Top-quality Polartec fleece and features that enable the tops and bottoms to layer easily under shells ensure that you’re warm, dry, and mobile.

About Black Diamond

Although the Black Diamond name was officially adopted in 1989, the company's roots can be traced back to 1957. That's when climber and mountaineer Yvon Chouinard started hammering out chromoly pitons on an anvil in his backyard and selling them from the trunk of his car in Yosemite. Yvon's equipment quickly became an industry standard. In 1989 Chouinard Equipment LTD was purchased by a group of former employees and renamed 'Black Diamond.' Today, Black Diamond has offices on three continents. Its focus is, and always has been, innovative ski and climbing gear and an equally innovative approach to sustainable business practices.

Black Diamond's approaches to innovation and sustainability have been inseparably intertwined since the very beginning. When climbers noticed that popular routes had been damaged by the pitons traditionally used for protection, Chouinard and his business partner Tom Frost developed aluminum chocks that had significantly less impact on the rock, and then phased out of the piton business entirely. It was a risk, but one that defined a lasting environmentally aware direction for Chouinard and Black Diamond.

Today, Black Diamond's expertise extends well beyond climbing, with notable innovations in skis, headlamps, backpacks, harnesses, trekking poles, tents, helmets, and many other outdoor products. Black Diamond has earned an outstanding reputation in backcountry skiing for its ground-breaking designs in both AT and telemark gear, including award-winning skis, boots, bindings, gloves, climbing skins, and vital accessories like beacons, probes, and Avalung packs. Moving beyond gear, Black Diamond continues to expand its line of high-quality apparel, offering both the technical jackets and pants one would expect from Black Diamond, as well as appealing, comfortable casual wear.

Even with Black Diamond's broad range of products and worldwide distribution, it never lost sight of its roots or its high standards of environmentally responsible manufacturing processes and safe working conditions. In 2010 it initiated an official Corporate Responsibility program to monitor and ensure environmental and social compliance and stewardship within the brand, and it put into place a Vendor Code of Conduct to hold its outside vendors to a similarly high standard. Black Diamond is also extremely active in environmental programs, providing continuing support for over a dozen groups whose focus is environmental preservation.

The company came a long way from a backyard anvil and a climber's vision in Yosemite. Fortunately, it hasn't lost sight of its values along the way. Black Diamond produces some of the finest climbing and skiing equipment and clothing in the world, but its commitment to the environment and fair labor practices are equally impressive. As it grows, Black Diamond's influence will also grow—helping to advance the outdoor industry not only through technical innovation, but through social and environmental programs as well.